In the land of the Matrix

A sign of the times.

Self storage.

Perhaps the next book from Owen Jones will be on the theme and examining the socio-economic implications of being able to pack up your life, or a certain part of it and stashing it away in a steel container within some impersonal building whose corridors resemble a nightmarish scene from The Matrix.

I did notice the marketing efforts of self storage warehouses whilst driving northwards out of London, must have been a decade ago, but thought of it as another sort of fad, money making exercise or ploy to relieve gullible Southerners of more of their disposable income.

I had not come across the concept before.

Let's face it. Up beyond Watford, if we have any surplus items we just put them up in the roof space, out in the back of the garage or purchase a shed for the garden.

Therein lies the success of self storage in London.

There are no roof spaces left within the Metropolis. I have it on reliable information from a Surveyor who works out of Whitehall, London, England that developable space, as found in those twisty, claustrophobic parts of the roof structure, is far too valuable to house a few boxes of personal effects or an embarrassing vinyl record collection. Consequently there are no attic areas, cock-lofts, garretts or eaves left. They are now in residential use as studio type flats or described under other clever terminology that suggests a fashionable abode but belies the need to stoop when moving about and to wear a crash helmet when in bed wedged close and paralell to the roof slope.

Garages and indeed any private vehicular spaces are similarly in scarce supply in our Capital City and if they can be used to avoid street parking charges or can be let out at extortionate rates to neighbours or on a commercial basis then you can forget the comparative luxury of using the rafter space or just at the back for old furniture or other non perishable and non valuable items.

I feel sorry for the makers and suppliers of garden sheds in the London catchment, that is in the first place, if there are any at all in that line of business.

There is a feeling of satisfaction and perhaps a hearkening back to Feudal and Manorial Times in looking out over your own land, even if just a garden.

It is there to do with what you want, within reason, the tolerances of those surrounding you and in accordance with any legal Covenants in particular for older houses which prohibit setting up a hiring fair, a fellmongers, tin smelting process or from keeping poultry and swine.

What better use for your own garden than to site a shed for storage. One of those small on the outside, six feet by three feet, but producing a catherdralesque interior with boundless possibilities for stowing things on shelves, hooks, a work bench (smallish) but importantly leaving enough room in the doorway for a chair to allow you to just sit and watch the world go by.

Pity those Londoners then. Whilst they may be able to look out from kitchen or living room windows onto a garden ,chances are it is not theirs solely or for quiet enjoyment. A large, former single residence will have been carved up into flats and any outside spaces allocated to the units or just conveyed as compensation for the poor subterranean souls who got the lower ground floor/basement flat/bunker.

So , no real opportunity for a shed of spectacular connotation for those who have no rights of use.

These three factors working together or individually provide the market conditions, the ideal seeding ground for self storage facilities. There are other contributing influences of population, employment, family breakdown, economics , materialism and so on but that is for another blog another day.

Whatever trend or practice originates in London does take some time to reach us out in the sticks but I am able to report on the arrival of self storage in my home town. This may have taken a decade or more from my first glimpse of the phenomena in North London but that sounds about right.

The building, bearing the bright yellow livery of a National Chain, has taken on a new lease of life from former industrial function. The three floors which had supported lathes and milling machines are now occupied by a maze of sheet metal compartments of varying size but uniform in white metal and lemon coloured doors. The freight lift has been refurbished and security ramped up with CCTV and controlled entrances. The workforce, once numbering a few score skilled operators has been reduced to a sole manager who sits surrounded by a bank of television screens and samples of packaging materials and supplies.

Self storage is now a fact of life in our busy, modern lives. It suits us to squirrel away our possessions and liberate our floorspace for better purposes. For some it provides a vault for an old life and a brief respite before embarking in a new direction.

I have just managed to shoulder the door shut after cramming my 100 sq ft space with the contents of our family house as a stop gap between a sale and a purchase. It has been an interesting experience and I feel that I have joined a special club for those in transit.

It was fun filling it up but I have just realised that I will have to risk a potentially explosive situation when I attempt to open it again in , hopefully, a week or so.